As the use of portable electronic devices and the growth of voice and data networks have become more pervasive, one of the most important applications of these systems has been the ability to provide point to point communication capability. These communications take the form of either real time communications in the form of voice communications or in the form of near real time communications in the form of electronic mail messages or other text messaging technologies.
Unfortunately, as networks have grown larger and as electronic devices have become more numerous, the risk of the improper interception of these messages has grown. At the same time, as the use of communication and messaging technologies has increased, the value of the information that is being transmitted has grown rapidly. The confluence of these two factors results in a great deal of highly valuable information being transmitted on a relatively insecure transmission topology.
The lack of security in data communications has been addressed in large part by the development of more sophisticated encryption algorithms. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous availability of powerful computing platforms has made it possible to defeat relatively simple encryption algorithms. This risk has forced developers to create very complex encryption algorithms. While these algorithms are difficult to defeat, they are also time consuming and require a great deal of processing power to use.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for a secure communications system and method which provide relatively high security without consuming the processor resources and time associated with undefeatable, complex encryption algorithms.